


play your melody (on my heart strings)

by praxisss (shardmind)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Chanyeol is a dick, M/M, au where exo didn't happen, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-03-21 01:51:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3673077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shardmind/pseuds/praxisss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>yixing trusts him illicitly. it's a flaw of his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	play your melody (on my heart strings)

**Author's Note:**

> this was all done on twitter when i was staying in tokyo last summer and any mistakes (all the mistakes) are because i am a doof. 
> 
> xposted from my lj fic comm.

"you fucked up." the words are harsh and they cut — they're probably meant to. yixing pushes at his shoulder and every ounce of calm he ever had is replaced with anger, burning white hot beneath his palm on chanyeol's chest. "you fucked it all up, you asshole." he punctuates the last word with another shove. all chanyeol can do is let him. there are tears clinging to yixing's eyelashes and chanyeol hates himself for putting them there.  
  
chanyeol remembers being seventeen and helplessly in love with the feel of guitar strings and listening to songs over and over until he could play them by ear. he had the keys to his mom's kia and not a care in the world. time was measured in how many tracks he had on his setlist at jino's dad's place. and then he's twenty three, holding hands with a guy he barely knows before they take to the stage together.  
  
"i've never done this before." the guy, yixing, stutters. his knuckles are white and his nails bite into chanyeol's palm. hours later, he's gasping the same thing as chanyeol smooths away goosebumps across soft thighs and makes room for his face between yixing's legs. "i'll take care of you."  
  
yixing trusts him illicitly. it's a flaw of his.  
  
years later, chanyeol still compares everyone to his broad guitarist ex who's torso was way too long and would mumble chinese in the afterglow. he doesn't think about the scandal, or how it ruined both their chances at a future as musicians, or how it was his fault. he thinks about his twenty fifth birthday and yixing's hand on his waist as they finally signed the contract. and then later, in the car, as yixing rode him in the backseat. his eyes fluttered shut but his hands kept shaking and chanyeol kissed his fingertips until his shirt was stained with white.  
  
"i- i'm so proud of you." it's rarely 'i love you', only when chanyeol forgets himself with yixing's arms wrapped around his waist. it's nearly always something else.  
  
the sex is incredible. that's why he's still there, chanyeol tells himself when the guilt seeps into his bones and he slips on his sneakers at three am. he takes up running as a precaution, to clear his head of all the... yixing.  
  
he's twenty six when the scandal breaks. they're just about to debut and yixing plucks anxiously at his acoustic on a bench looking out over the han. in the summer heat, everything sort of smells like garbage, especially so close to the riverbank. there's a missed call on chanyeol's cell from dispatch and he doesn't have the balls to call them back just yet. he listens to yixing play their debut song until he isn't playing anymore, the pads of his fingers a protesting red. chanyeol's hands dwarf yixings as he holds them in his own, comforting and familiar.  
  
"i'll take care of you"  
  
yixing initiates the kiss. maybe that's why it worked out so badly in his favour. slurs tagging themselves to the end of his name on naver.  
  
the kiss itself was tame. it had to be, anything more would have been overkill. as it turns out, yixing lacing his fingers through chanyeol's hair was also overkill. dispatch reported about _‘two sm rookies in a secret same sex relationship, forbidden by upper management_ ’ and it alienates them both. up until the last line. _'i've known about yixing's sexuality for a long time,' says trainee, park chanyeol. 'and i have never returned his feelings.'_  
  
"YOU FUCKED UP!" yixing angrily wipes away his tears, the shirt he's wearing is chanyeol's but it's probably not the right time to mention it.  
  
"i can't believe i fell for you at all." breaths ragged, yixing continues. "all the time we've been together and you out me." he doesn't leave any room for chanyeol to interrupt. "did you get paid? was it money? publicity? or do you get off on ruining people's lives?"  
  
chanyeol's chest hurts and its not because yixing keeps banging his fists against it. maybe this is what heartbreak feels like... or maybe it's the guilt of leaving yixing without leg to stand on in an industry full of sharks waiting to tear him apart.  
  
"i'm sorry," chanyeol can barely breathe, the lump in his throat growing until his tongue cant reach words at all. "i lo-“  
  
"you don't. you said it yourself. you don't 'return my feelings', right? i can think of a million times you've said otherwise," his words are steel but the tears streaming down his cheeks just make him look broken. he probably is. and it's chanyeol's fault.  
  
chanyeol is thirty and he works at a jazz club just on the other side of hongdae. he never managed to score another record deal and every track he recorded down in jongdae's studio came out flat and lacking. he lost his depth when he lost pancakes for breakfast and being awoken by the sound of somebody else singing in his shower. his covers aren't too bad but it just doesn't feel the same without a second guitar.  
  
he hasn't heard from yixing in years.  
---


End file.
